"Byzantium" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I shall view the walls Where free Byzantium once arose, And Stamboul's Oriental halls The Turkish tyrants ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the numerous revolutions that have accompanied the fall of the Greek empire in Byzantium, most of the inhabitants of Fanari, near Constantinople, boast of being descendants of the dethroned imperial families; a circumstance which is probable enough, and which nobody takes the trouble to dispute, any more than the alleged nobility of the Castilian peasantry, or the absurd ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... thou forget, my lord, how of old time, In the brave days of good Sauromatus, These venomous townsmen, shamelessly allied With the barbarian hosts, brought us to ruin; Or, with the failing force of Caesar leagued, By subtle devilish enginery of war, Robbed Bosphorus of its own, when, but for them, Byzantium were our prey, and all its might, And we Rome's masters? Nay; I swear to thee, I would rather see the Prince dead at my feet, I would rather see our loved State sunk and lost, Than know my boy, the sole heir of my crown, The sole hope of my people, ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... enamelling metals appears to have been introduced from Byzantium through Venice into Western Europe at the close of the tenth century. After this time Greek artists are known to have visited this country, and to have carried on a lucrative trade in the manufacture of sacred ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... of Byzantium [1708], s.v.: '(Heracles) slew the noble sons of steadfast Neleus, eleven of them; but the twelfth, the horsemen Gerenian Nestor chanced to be staying with the horse-taming Gerenians. ((LACUNA)) Nestor ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... cannot but think) for the purposes of his fiction, my father has taken up the story of Pausanias at a period subsequent to the battle of Plataea; when the Spartan Regent, as Admiral of the United Greek Fleet in the waters of Byzantium, was at the summit of his power and reputation. Mr. Grote, in his great work, expresses the opinion (which certainly cannot be disputed by unbiassed readers of Thucydides) that the victory of Plataea was not attributable to any remarkable ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... brook interruption a day. Ye may also have heard of the Chersonesan pirates, nested up in the Euxine; none bolder, by the Bacchae! Yesterday word came to Rome that, with a fleet, they had rowed down the Bosphorus, sunk the galleys off Byzantium and Chalcedon, swept the Propontis, and, still unsated, burst through into the Aegean. The corn-merchants who have ships in the East Mediterranean are frightened. They had audience with the Emperor himself, and from Ravenna there go to-day a hundred ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... of Constantine, sculpture had already declined, and together with it the other finer arts. And if anything was wanting to complete this ruin, it was supplied to them amply by the departure of Constantine from Rome, on his going to establish the seat of the Empire at Byzantium; for the reason that he took with him not only all the best sculptors and other craftsmen of that age, whatsoever manner of men they were, but also an infinite number of statues and other works of sculpture, all ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... can change it to the hum Of multitudinous acclaim, When triple-walled Byzantium, Re-echoes the ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Roman consul Lucius Papirius (482), and by that means to secure a free departure for himself and his troops. For the Romans this was an immense piece of good fortune. After the experiences of Philip before Perinthus and Byzantium, of Demetrius before Rhodes, and of Pyrrhus before Lilybaeum, it may be doubted whether the strategy of that period was at all able to compel the surrender of a town well fortified, well defended, and freely accessible by sea; and how different a turn matters might ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... This Christian art of the declining empire is divided into two great branches, western and eastern; one centred at Rome, the other at Byzantium, of which the one is the early Christian Romanesque, properly so called, and the other, carried to higher imaginative perfection by Greek workmen, is distinguished from it as Byzantine. But I wish the reader, for the present, ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... good fellow, a twelvemonth or twain, To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain; But ne'er shall you find, should you search till you tire, So happy a man ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... jurisdiction, of which the main resources for war and peace lay in Europe and (speaking by the narrowest terms) in Thrace. Henceforth, therefore, for the city and throne of Constantine, resuming its old Grecian name of Byzantium, there succeeded a theatre less diffusive, a population more concentrated, a character of action more determinate and jealous, a style of courtly ceremonial more elaborate as well as more haughtily repulsive, and universally a system of interests, as much ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... erection of basilicas for Christian worship in Rome and Italy, effected a great political change, and one destined to exert a marked influence upon Christian architecture, when he removed the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, and called the new capital Constantinople,[29] after his own name. Byzantium had been an ancient place, but was almost in ruins when Constantine, probably attracted by the unrivalled advantages of ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... "which I honoured with the name of Sydney." and decided that that was there he would "plant." Every writer of mediaeval history who has had occasion to refer to the choice by Constantine the Great of Byzantium, afterwards Constantinople, as his capital, has extolled his judgment and prescience. Constantine was an Emperor, and could do as he would. Arthur Phillip was an official acting under orders. We can never sufficiently admire the wisdom he displayed when, exercising his own discretion, he ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... PINDAR'S verses wedded. Yet why this wonder, when you think How strongly welded is the link That binds Columbia and its glory To lands renowned in classic story? There's hardly any town of note Mentioned by MOMMSEN or by GROTE Except Byzantium, perhaps— Which doesn't figure in our maps. Of Ithacas we have a score, And Troys and Uticas galore; Chicago has a Punic sound, And pretty often, I'll be bound, Austere Bostonians heavenward send a Petition calling her delenda; While Philadelphia, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... was born at Pella, 356 B.C. His mind was formed chiefly by Aristotle, who instructed him in every branch of human learning, especially in the art of government. Alexander was sixteen years of age when his father marched against Byzantium, and left the government in his hands during his absence. Two years afterward, he displayed singular courage at the battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.), where he overthrew the Sacred Band of the Thebans. "My son," said Philip, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... confirmation of the theory that he proclaimed, day in, day out, namely: that the Latin races were on the rapid down-grade; Spain and Portugal, Italy, Roumania, the South American republics, were, in his opinion, in a state of moral putrefaction, France a sheer Byzantium. It had been a piece of foolhardiness without parallel to try to make this war a decisive racial struggle between the nation that, as Protestant, brought free research in its train and one which had not yet been able to get rid of the Pope and political despotism. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... before men began to date their calendars "A.D.," the city on the Bosporus was a prize for which nations struggled. All the old-world dominions—Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Roman—fought here; and for hundreds of years Byzantium was the capital of the Roman and Christian world. The Crusaders and the Saracens did a choice lot of fighting over this battle-ground; and it was here that the doughty warrior, Paul of Tarsus, broke into Europe, as first invader in the greatest of conquests. Along this narrow line of beautiful ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... the tender and junior Buddha, Central and southern empires and all their belongings, possessors, The wars of Tamerlane,the reign of Aurungzebe, The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese, The first travelers famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor, Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be fill'd, The foot of man unstay'd, the hands never at rest, Thyself O soul that ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... suffered an overwhelming defeat. Basil blinded 15,000 prisoners, leaving a one-eyed man to every hundred to lead them to their tsar, who fainted at the sight and died two days later. The last sparks of resistance were extinguished in 1018, and the great Slavonic realm lay in the dust. The power of Byzantium controlled once more the Illyrian peninsula. Basil died in December 1025 in the midst of preparations to send a naval expedition to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... would request his son to return the towns that he occupied, if Cantacuzenus, on his side, would engage to pay him a sum of forty thousand ducats. At the same time he invited him to an interview to meet Suleiman on the Gulf of Nicomedia. But the Sultan pretending to be ill, the Emperor returned to Byzantium, without having ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Constantinople brought once more into the camp license, indiscipline, and a thirst after brigandage. Whilst awaiting the war against the Mussulmans, the pilgrims pillaged the houses, the palaces, and even the churches in the outskirts of Byzantium. To deliver his capital from these destructive guests, Alexis furnished them with vessels, and got them shipped off ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... country, of money-getting, money-saving parents, and he was born a dreamer of the past. He grew up a student of basilican lore, of choir-screens, of Persian frescoes, and an ardent lounger in the somewhat musty precincts of Chaldea and Byzantium and Babylon. Early Christian Symbolism, a dispute over the site of a Greek temple, the derivation of the lotus column, the restoration of a Gothic buttress—these were the absorbing questions of his youth, with now and then ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... would offer. But he, quick to become exasperated by opposition, always went further, hurling numbers at his competitors as though they were blows. After such excursions, the senora would appear as majestic and dazzling as a basilica of Byzantium—ears and neck decorated with great pearls, her bosom a constellation of brilliants, her hands radiating points of light of ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Ultimately Alexandria became the seat of a metaphysical school of Christian theology, and the scene of bitter religious controversies. In 330 A.D., Constantinople was founded on the site of the earlier Byzantium, and soon thereafter Greek scholars transferred their interest to it and made it a new center of Greek learning. There Greek science, literature, and philosophy were preserved for ten centuries, and later handed back to a Europe just awakening from the long intellectual night of the Middle ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... place illuminated by six cresset lights. These lights were the power of Assyria, and Nineveh, and Egypt, and Rome, and Athens, and Byzantium: six other cressets stood ready there, but fire had not yet been laid to these. Back of all was a large blackboard with much figuring on it in red chalk. And here, too, was the black gentleman, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... all those men of the world who have become the vicegerent of Jesus. Nicholas V was not a man of the world, he was a scholar, full of the enthusiasm of his day. As a statesman, while he pacified Italy, he saw Byzantium fall into the hands of the barbarians. He was a Pagan in whom there was no guile. His enthusiasm was rather for Apollo and the Muses than for Jesus and the Saints. With a simplicity touching and delightful, he watched Sigismondo Malatesta build his ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... soil, were crowded with the galleys of the Templars and the Knights of St. John, who flung succors into the menaced kingdoms of the peninsula; the inland sea swarmed with their ships hasting from their forts and islands, from Rhodes and Byzantium, from Jaffa and Ascalon. The Pyrenean peaks beheld the pennons and glittered with the armor of the knights marching out of France into Spain; and, finally, in a ship that set sail direct from Bohemia, where Sir Wilfrid happened to be quartered at the time when the news of the defeat ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what this great word related to, when lo, I was told that I was now in the city of Gioachinopoli, so called in compliment to the reigning sovereign, Gioachino Murat, the termination being added in imitation of the emperor Constantine, who gave his name to the ancient Byzantium! ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... warlike strangers at length found it expedient to give to a domination which had been established by arms the sanction of law and ancient prescription. Theodoric thought it politic to obtain from the distant Court of Byzantium a commission appointing him ruler of Italy; and Clive, in the same manner, applied to the Court of Delhi for a formal grant of the powers of which he already possessed the reality. The Mogul was absolutely helpless; and, though he murmured, had reason to be well pleased that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... built by the Emperor Constantine on the ruins of Byzantium, we have the first instance of a city which, from the time of its ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... punctuated with poplars, swept the broad Dnyepr. It did not seem difficult then to enter into the feelings of Prince Oleg when he reached the infant town, on his expedition from unfertile Novgorod the Great, of the north, against Byzantium, and, coveting its rich beauty, slew its rulers and entered into possession, saying, "This shall be the Mother of all Russian Cities." We could understand the sentiments of the pilgrims who flock to the Holy City by ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... successors, with an intention of rebuilding Troy, and there establishing the chief seat of the Eastern Empire, heard a voice, saying, "Dost thou go to rebuild Sodom?" upon which, he altered his intention, turned his ships and standards towards Byzantium, and there fixing his seat of empire, gave his own propitious name to the city. The British history informs us, that Mailgon, king of the Britons, and many others, were addicted to this vice; that enormity, however, ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... wandered listlessly among the lecture halls. What had once seemed to him the fine gold of eloquence was now only leaden rhetoric. In his lodging at Florence he handled once again his treasures—his books from Ficino's press; his manuscripts, some from Byzantium yellow with age, some on clean white vellum new copied by his order; his busts and gems and intaglios. What had become of that fervour with which he had been used to gaze on them? What of that delicious world into which, with drawn curtains and a clear lamp, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... shore is looked down upon by Port Athyras and Selymbria, and Constantinople, formerly called Byzantium, a colony of the Athenians, and Cape Ceras, having at its extremity a lofty tower to serve as a lighthouse to ships—from which cape also a very cold wind which often arises from ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... lastly, whatever your title and your name, who love good, who pity the suffering; who walk through the world like the symbolical Virgin of Byzantium, with both arms ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... three days he lay and raved, And cried for death, until a lethargy Fell on him, and his fellows thought him saved; But on the third night he awoke to die; And at Byzantium doth his body lie Between two blossoming pomegranate trees, Within the churchyard of ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... said, "Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." It is not pleasant to talk about, is it? but Rome and Byzantium fell because of their impurities, and they seemed as firmly established as the seven hills on which Rome stood. Germany will fall, because she has trusted supremely in the arm of flesh, with all that it means. Primarily it is righteousness that exalteth a nation, while the nation ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... sometimes described, who were gradually drawn to wider ventures and a larger commerce. The port of Aquileia had long been the emporium of a trade which reached northwards to the Danube and eastward to Byzantium. What the Roman merchants of Venetia had been at Aquileia they remained at Grado. The commerce of Altinum simply transferred itself to Torcello. The Paduan merchants passed to their old port of Rialto. Vague and rhetorical as is the letter ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... treasured and deciphered with infinite pains all the records of earlier learning, the followers of Mohammed zealously destroyed all the records of the olden days. Some of these records, however, survived among the Arabs of Spain, and others were preserved by the Christian scholars who dwelt in Byzantium, or Constantinople, and were brought into western Europe when that city was captured by the Turks ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... Of plaited rushes, or twigs, consisted also a peculiar kind of net, a specimen of which is seen on the reverse of a medal coined under the Emperor Macrinus, as the emblem of the maritime city of Byzantium. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... there were thirteen towns swallowed up in the Lake Asphaltites; Stephen of Byzantium reckons eight; the book of Genesis, while it names five as situated in the Vale of Siddim, relates the destruction of two only: four are mentioned in Deuteronomy, and five are noticed by the author of Ecclesiasticus. Several travellers, and among others ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... Lenaeus, and that the Athenians held contests in this peribolos before they built the theatre. Pollux speaks[144] of the two theatres, [Greek: kai Dionysiakon theatron kai lenaicon]. Stephanus of Byzantium quotes[145] from Apollodorus that the "Lenaion Agon" is a contest in the fields by the wine-press. Plato implies[146] the existence of a second theatre by stating that Pherecrates exhibited dramas at the Lenaeum. If the Lenaea and ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... to build for his Empire a new capital, which should be worthy of him. He selected the site of BYZANTIUM as offering the greatest advantages; for, being defended on three sides by the sea and the Golden Horn, it could easily be made almost impregnable, while as a seaport its advantages were unrivalled,—a ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... "the comparison isn't very unfavorable to the son. I believe the original iconoclasts were the image-breakers in Byzantium." ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the august name of Constantinople, the figure of the imperial city may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... must look upon things at home much in the same light as the Norsemen of old did upon the frivolities of Rome or Byzantium. The spirit of O'Gaygun's philosophy pervades the colonial mind a good deal, and, possibly, we may be prone to cultivate it as a means of stifling any regrets we may have after the old life. We are very natural ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Turkish appellation; but, on its own shores, it is called Bahar Loth, or Almotanah. There were undoubtedly more than two cities engluphed in the "dead sea." In the valley of Siddim were five—Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen of Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteeen, (engulphed) —but the last is ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... made Byzantium the seat of his empire, he decorated that city with splendid edifices, and called it after his own name. Desirous to make reparation to the Christians for the injuries they had suffered during the reign of his predecessor, he commanded the most diligent ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... word answering to the Roman Gallia, that is, Gaul. It was one of the central provinces of Asia Minor, and received its name from the circumstance of its being inhabited by a people of Gallic origin who came by the way of Byzantium and the Hellespont in the third century before Christ. Two visits of the apostle to Galatia are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles; the first, during his second missionary journey (Acts 16:6); and the second, at the beginning of his third journey (Acts 18:23). After which of these ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... seat of government removed from Rome to Byzantium, which city from thenceforward takes the name of Constantinople, from the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... of government which preceded the establishment of Byzantium as the capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine, the Greeks contributed to effect a mighty revolution of the whole frame of social life by the organisation which they gave to the Church from the moment ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... result of some so-called principles. In politics—always using the term in its broad meaning, and not as denoting the disputes and manoeuvres of parties, like the contests between the green and blue factions of Byzantium—there is a strong presumption that whatever is recommended as "logical" is also foolish. It would be well to prescribe a severe course of Burke for the a priori theorists, and while they are occupied with it, set ourselves to the real ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... penetrated mountains; in Italy, especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons, Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,—a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for travellers erected upon them at points of every five or ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... boundaries of Greece stretched far further than they do now, and it was upon the shores of the Bosphorus that Constantine built his new capital. There was already an ancient town there named Byzantium, but he transformed it into a new and splendid city. The Emperor willed it to be called New Rome, but instead the people called it the city of Constantine, and we know it ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Greece to Great Britain. As Mommsen says: "It was through Africa that Christianity became the religion of the world." In Africa the last flood of Germanic invasions spent itself within hearing of the last gasp of Byzantium, and it was through Africa that Islam came to play its great ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... expire, before he showed Russia and the world that the Turks had a general, and that with a general they were still soldiers, as when the blazing scimitar of Orchan first flashed upon Europe, or Byzantium shook before the thunder of the artillery of Mohammed II. They were still worthy of their father, Osman, the "Bone-breaker;" and, in hand-to-hand combat, an overmatch for the boors of Russia, both in courage and strength. It must be said, to their disadvantage, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... it first arose in imperial majesty out of the humble Byzantium, showed, even in its birth, and amid its adventitious splendour, as we have already said, some intimations of that speedy decay to which the whole civilised world, then limited within the Roman empire, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... fronts. Then he led forth his forty-four men and marched, amid new ovations, all through Stamboul, across the great bridge to Galata, to the deck of the steamship General, at the head of his little band, now grown epic, amid the cheers of Byzantium, on which he and his officers had never set foot before—always in the clear blue and sunlight of this ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that the "Prologue" to The Earthly Paradise, called "The Wanderers," makes the leader of these wanderers, who turn story-tellers when they reach the city by "the borders of the Grecian sea," a Norseman. Born in Byzantium of a Greek mother, he claimed Norway as his home, and on his father's death returned to his kin. His speech to the Elder of the City reveals a touching loyalty to his father's ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... expression here. In architecture it reflects something of almost all of the orders found in the Exposition. In the main it is Italian Renaissance, which means that the basic characters are Roman and Greek, enriched with borrowings from the Orient and Byzantium. In column and capital, in wall and arch and vaulted ceiling, it represents the architecture of the whole Exposition, and so harmoniously as to form a singular testimony to the unity of the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... it stands, this incomprehensible faded show, a thing left on one side, and now still and deserted by any interest, its many emptinesses as inexplicable now as the cruelties of medieval Venice, the theology of old Byzantium. And they ruled and influenced the lives of nearly a quarter of mankind, these politicians, their clownish conflicts swayed the world, made mirth perhaps, made ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... booty of many a wild adventure. Here, at a later day, Rollo the Dane had that memorable dream of leprosy, the cure of which was the conversion of North Gaul into Normandy, of Pagans into Christians, and the subsequent conquest of every throne in Christendom from Ultima Thule to Byzantium. And now the descendant of those early freebooters had come back to the spot, at a moment when a wider and even more imperial swoop was to be made by their modern representatives. For the sea-kings of the sixteenth century—the Drakes, Hawkinses, Frobishers, Raleighs, Cavendishes—the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... study of jurisprudence was so enormous that there were schools of law in every part of the Empire, even in the very domain of Metaphysics. But, though the transfer of the seat of empire to Byzantium gave a perceptible impetus to its cultivation in the East, jurisprudence never dethroned the pursuits which there competed with it. Its language was Latin, an exotic dialect in the Eastern half of the Empire. It is only of the West that we can lay down that law was not only the mental food ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... for Attila's face and person had all the natural ugliness of his race, and the description given of him by a Byzantine ambassador must have been well known in the imperial courts. Herbert has well versified the portrait drawn by Priscus of the great enemy of both Byzantium and Rome: ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... of Rome; the fall of her temporal Empire which spread so wide about the world all that good and evil which men can never forget, and never cease to feel; the clashing of East and West, South and North, about her rich and fruitful daughter Byzantium; the rise, the dissensions, and the waning of Islam; the wanderings of Scandinavia; the Crusades; the foundation of the States of modern Europe; the struggles of free thought with ancient dying system—with all these events and their meaning is the history of popular art ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... youthful ardour bold, 'Till o'er the changeful earth four suns had roll'd, When Stockholm's towers and Meler's native stream, Of every vision, every thought the theme, Recall'd my steps.—Returning thence, I saw Byzantium sunk beneath a victor's law: O'er the high walls barbaric ensigns wave, Red with the recent carnage of the brave: On quarter'd camps the sun his red beam flings; Thro' night's dim arch the shrill-toned Ezzau rings; Buried in dust ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... of things at Rome, and after the rise of Byzantium under Constantine at Byzantium likewise, was one altogether fantastic, abnormal, utterly unlike anything that we have seen, or can imagine to ourselves without great effort. I know no better method of illustrating it, than quoting, from Mr. Sheppard's excellent ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... the Black Sea as well as land forays across the Danube. It was because of the successes of the Goths in the Balkans that the decision was ultimately arrived at to move the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople. During the first Gothic attack, after the death of Decius, Byzantium itself was threatened, and the cities around the Sea of Marmora sacked. An incident of this invasion which has been chronicled is that the Goths enjoyed hugely the warm baths they found at Anchialus—"there were ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... features, the eastern aspect of the sanctuary, the cruciform plan, and the soaring octagonal cupola, are borrowed from Byzantium—the latter in an improved form—the cross with a difference—the nave, or arm opposite the sanctuary, being lengthened so as to resemble the supposed shape of the actual instrument of suffering, and form what is now distinctively called the Latin Cross. The crypt and ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... of Kherson, then containing about sixty thousand inhabitants, surrounded by all the magnificence which Russian and Austrian opulence could exhibit. A triumphal arch spanned the gate, upon which was inscribed in letters of gold, "The road to Byzantium." Four days were passed here in revelry. The party then entered the Crimea, and continued their journey as far as Sevastopol, where the empress was delighted to find, within its capacious harbor, many Russian frigates ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... of founding a city which might perpetuate the glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile attack, whilst it was accessible on every side to the benefits of commercial intercourse. Many ages before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of antiquity had described the advantages of a situation, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the most flourishing were Selymbria and Byzantium, both founded by the Megarians, who appear as an enterprising maritime ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... the shore of the Bosphorus, where Asia and Europe are only divided by that narrow channel, and where the old Greek city of Byzantium already stood. From hence he hoped to be able to rule the East and the West. He enlarged the city with splendid buildings, made a palace there for himself, and called it after his own name—Constantinople, or New Rome, neither ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... This was well illustrated at Byzantium. The development of courtesans and prostitutes into a great and flourishing institution; the political rule, by palace intrigues, of favorites, women, and eunuchs; the decisive interference of royal guards; the vices of public amusements and baths; the miseries and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... be without it in his own day. In his dialogue on fortune and misfortune, the interlocutor, who maintains the futility of glory, has the best of the contest. But, at the same time, Petrarch is pleased that the autocrat of Byzantium knows him as well by his writings as Charles IV knows him. And in fact, even in his lifetime, his fame extended far beyond Italy. And the emotion which he felt was natural when his friends, on the occasion of a visit to his native Arezzo (1350), took him to the house where he was born, and told ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... to 1450 A.D.$ The "Eastern Roman" style, originating in the removal of the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople (then called Byzantium). It is a combination of Persian and Roman. It influenced the various Moorish, Sacracenic ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part I • H. H. Windsor
... did a Vain Ambition prompt me to journey from Marseilles to Constantinople?" cried he about Fifty times a day. "Why did I rely on the protection of my Wife's Cousin, who gave me recommendations to his brother, Cook-in-Chief to the Ambassador of France at the court of the Antique Byzantium (l'antique Byzance)? Where is my Wife? Where is my Wife's Cousin? They are drinking the wine of Ramponneau; they are dancing at the Barriers. Oh, my Cocotte! where ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... and many other signs, it is clear that sculpture was in decadence in the time of Constantine, and with it the other superior arts. If anything was required to complete their ruin it was supplied by the departure of Constantine from Rome when he transferred the seat of government to Byzantium, as he took with him to Greece not only all the best sculptors and other artists of the age, such as they were, but also a quantity of statues and other beautiful ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... Byzantium he left to Alexander, who was then only sixteen years old, the sole charge of the administration of the kingdom of Macedonia, confirming his authority by entrusting to him his own signet.[401] He defeated and subdued the Maedian[402] rebels, took their city, ejected its barbarian ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... successful. 'Le Cid' (1885) and 'Le Mage' (1891), two works produced at the Paris Opera, may be passed over as comparative failures, but 'Esclarmonde' (1889) marks an important stage in Massenet's career. The libretto is drawn from an old French romance. Esclarmonde, the Princess of Byzantium, who is a powerful enchantress, loves Roland, the French knight, and commands her minion spirits to guide him to a distant island, whither she transports herself every night to enjoy his company. He betrays the secret of their love, and thereby loses Esclarmonde, but by ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the justice and even the necessity of their proposals, but that they must prove themselves to be in earnest by some act which would make it impossible for the great body of them to draw back. Upon this, Ouliades of Samos, and Antagoras of Chios conspired together, and off Byzantium, they ran on board of the ship of Pausanias, which was sailing before the rest. He on seeing this, rose up in a rage and threatened that in a short time he would let them know that they had not endangered ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... of Philippi, which lies nine miles from the gean Sea, on the road between Europe and Asia, the Via Egnatia, which ran then as now from Dyrrachium and Apollonia in Illyricum, by way of Thessalonica to Constantinople, or Byzantium, as it was then called. Brutus engaged the forces of Octavius, and Cassius those of Antony. Antony made head against his opponent; but Octavius, who was less of a commander, and fell into a fit of illness on the beginning of the battle, gave way before Brutus, though in consequence of misinformation ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... literary discoveries in recent years, a discovery which must startle the world of scholars, and even the apathetic public at large. This is none other than the recovery of the long-lost poems of Sappho, manuscripts of which were last heard of in the tenth century, when they were burnt at Rome and Byzantium. We shall have to go back to the fifteenth century, to the Fall of Constantinople, to the Revival of Learning, ere we can find a fitting parallel to match the importance of this recent find. Not since the spade of the excavator ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... the Thracian strait For love renowned; where on the mournful shore Rose Hero's tower, and Helle born of cloud (32) Took from the rolling waves their former name. Nowhere with shorter space the sea divides Europe from Asia; though Pontus parts By scant division from Byzantium's hold Chalcedon oyster-rich: and small the strait Through which Propontis pours the Euxine wave. Then marvelling at their ancient fame, he seeks Sigeum's sandy beach and Simois' stream, Rhoeteum noble for its Grecian tomb, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... still wishful to maintain the king's incognito, "the Turks having now taken Byzantium, the great bulwark of Christendom, I did fear me that the first of the tribe from that great army of locusts had ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby |
